Alibaba is making focused efforts to draw European SMEs. In line with the corporate itself, it has been profitable: the variety of SME patrons from Germany has elevated by 14 p.c up to now six months. Moreover, increasingly British SMEs are utilizing Alibaba.com as their procurement platform.

In direction of the top of its annual March Expo, Alibaba.com’s flagship on-line commerce present, the corporate reported robust enterprise purchaser demand from each German and UK SMEs.

Extra environment friendly and cost-effective

In line with Alibaba, SMEs are searching for methods to make their procurement processes extra environment friendly and cost-effective. “They’re dealing with challenges equivalent to macroeconomic stress, disruptions within the provide chain, and points in provider relationships.”

On this quest, many German firms flip to Alibaba, the Chinese language ecommerce large says. The variety of lively SME patrons is 14 p.c larger this month than in September 2023. The press launch doesn’t point out what number of German small and medium-sized sellers at the moment are lively on Alibaba.com.

Alibaba additionally recorded a “optimistic rise” within the variety of lively B2B patrons from the UK at this 12 months’s March Expo, with out specifying vendor numbers or progress percentages.

Shift to digital procurement channels

In line with Alibaba, the rise in SME patrons displays the overall shift to digital procurement channels, which Amazon in Europe additionally faucets into. Alibaba’s lately launched ‘B2B Sentiment Survey’ discovered that 52 p.c of German SMEs now make on-line purchases on B2B marketplaces. In the UK, that proportion was 51 p.c.

Most German and British SMEs buy on marketplaces.

Jijay Shen, Normal Supervisor Europe for Alibaba.com, states that on-line B2B marketplaces make cross-border sourcing “simpler than ever earlier than, enabling SMEs to discover alternatives to search out new merchandise, mitigate the chance of their provide chain, and drive margin on the click on of a button”.

Alibaba.com in France

Alibaba.com can be actively concentrating on patrons in France, the third largest ecommerce market in Europe. Earlier this 12 months, it launched a partnership to advertise French SMEs with authorities company Enterprise France.